Wowdb was created to replace db.mmo-champion.com which was created because Wowhead refused to work with us years ago and we needed it to run MMO-Champion. There is absolutely no way for a company as big as Wowhead/Zam/Tencent Games to work with MMO-Champion in the first place because it would require us to have access to absolutely everything they have, which is a pretty good reason to refuse.

The first goal was to provide better content on MMO-Champion compared to what we had with db.mmo-champion.com and we achieved that goal pretty easily. It also brought some competition back to the market and improved things indirectly for everyone, including people who use Wowhead. Competition is always good.

WoWDB is mostly a "hey let's see what we can do with this" project with no real goal. It's a 100% money sink for the company and even if we added an ad slot somewhere it would still be a pretty huge money loss. The main goal is really just to support MMO-Champion's news and make our life easier on this side.

However, I'm glad that some people/other major sites adopted it because it lets me work with smart minds that provide us with a decent amount of feedback and let us improve our database platform altogether (contributing to the success of gw2db.com for example) but I'm not really on a crusade to destroy Wowhead, otherwise I wouldn't have them listed as the most obvious link on every page you click.

Originally Posted by Boubouille

WoWDB is used to power most of what's behind MMO-Champion's news. It replaced db.mmo-champion.com that was becoming super obsolete and wouldn't have survived MoP. It's also a way to try to improve user experience on MMO-C over db.mmo-champion.com pages we had because those were pretty bad.

It's a technological sandbox to let us improve the database platform on a company level. The improvements on wowdb are partially the reason why gw2db was more succesful than other databases for example.

The original reason why MMO-C had to create a DB was already mentioned in the thread, Wowhead got too big to be able to work with us and we were stuck with the choice of either doing our own thing, or posting really shitty news. The amount of data processing that goes into patch news requires way too much access than what we could have gotten from another company.

Some people also mentioned that competition is good, and I tend to agree with that. WoWDB was the first database to support a bunch of things such as spec variable spells or item upgrades. We also focus a lot more on newsing, so our spell parsing tends to be much cleaner to keep the unofficial notes clear: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=100780/jab / http://www.wowdb.com/spells/100780-jab

It seems to me you're competing with wowhead which is much older, has more comments, more people contributing to their database, and more features. If you want to be better, you need to figure out how to do what wowhead is doing, but better.

The post that Blizzard banned me for:

2014-11-28 19:55:26 [Trade - City] Potassiumgluconate: female dwarf butts are the best thing that this expansion has given us.

It seems to me you're competing with wowhead which is much older, has more comments, more people contributing to their database, and more features. If you want to be better, you need to figure out how to do what wowhead is doing, but better.

Pretty much this.
At the moment, there just seems to be no real reason to use wowdb rather than wowhead - other than personal preference maybe. :/

~"When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers"~

I, too, often just use the wowhead link, especially if I want to see what the item looks like (model viewer). Comments are helpful and are generally tertiary as reasoning for searches on wowhead, however.

If wowDB had a model viewer (that worked better than wowhead's--it bugs a little sometimes), I'd use wowDB more often directly.

[edit] Also, yes, darken the negative space (a dark green would be nice--doesn't have to be black).

Wowhead has a very large amount of user-generated content which simply makes it much better. The WowDB design is clearly inspired by Wowhead, in fact it looks more or less like a clone but with a lot less content.

Once it has a lot of useful comments, screenshots, maps and other things it can outdo Wowhead, but it'll be hard to get there since there currently isn't much point in using it next to Wowhead.

Everytime I've used WoWDB: I find at item, see a lack of comments and extra information, and go over to wowhead where I find exactly what I want.

I honestly don't know what you could ever do to catch up - the comments offer a wealth of information that's just not there on WoWDB and until I get better information from you (better than wowhead that is) I won't switch.

I've tried using wowdb but linking an item simply isn't enough for the majority of the database. The user comments, screenshots, model viewer etc. are essential and wowhead has this covered due to it's age. Wowhead is visually nicer as well, I'm not a big fan of the wowdb color scheme. Seems like a wasted effort sadly.

You need a model viewer feature such as wowhead's very badly. Aside from that, the biggest reason I tend to use wowhead more is that I prefer that overall visual design. Wowdb can be hard to look at for an extended time.

All this complaining is simply further proof that Blizzard could send each and every player a real-life wish-granting flying unicorn carrying a solid gold plate of chocolate chip cookies wrapped in hundred dollar bills, and someone would whine that Blizzard sucks for not letting them choose oatmeal raisin.

Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking

If your guild demands you slip into an elephants butt and force yourself out in a regurgation then you can't blame Blizzard for supplying the elephant.

Honestly, unless wowhead does something terribly wrong, it will just be hard to get people to switch. Wowhead improved a lot on thotbot y alka, which made those sites (and their useless comments) obsolete. Wowhead has a big lead on WOWDB just based on name recognition, but also in regards to their extensive (and mostly useful) comments.

The other thing I would mention that I don´t like about wowdb is how big it appears on the page. Most tables are built to be the entire width of my screen, which means the content is very big, and requires excessive scrolling. A lot of time when you are looking at something like a professions crafting chart, you want to see a lot of data on one screen. Every time I use it, I need to change it to 75%

I honestly don't know what wowdb would be for. It is pretty much a exact copy of wowhead, with less comments and contents (missing modelviewers and very few screenshots) and different colors (and I have to add I prefer the wowhead colors).

I cannot complain about the speed or usability of wowhead, so I really see no reason to use wowdb right now for me.

Consider creating some manner of addon that can fulfill some manner of easy and useful purpose by syncing up to WoWDB. I'm not talking about parsing addons or the like, perhaps something related to gear lists, or maps, or even some manner of customized model viewer in-game. These are just random ideas, but my point is that WoWDB isn't doing anything WoWhead doesn't already do. It needs to stand out, which means it needs a GOOD feature that WoWhead really doesn't have.

want to be better than the others ?
Make sure you have active moderation on the comments on items etc.
Thottbot / wowhead both suffer from an abundance of comments that have zero relevance to do with the item in question.

other than that it is just another database site, its not bringing anything new or exciting to the table.

Thottbot was the first one that back in vanilla I used, so I assume that was the first wow DB site available.
Wowhead brought a better layout, 3D models and a distinct lack of trolls due to people mainly using thottbot still.

if you want to compete with these then you have to bring something fresh that neither of these have done, Which sadly I am not seeing at the moment with wowdb

Nuclear weapons: A firm public commitment to build the £100bn renewal of the Trident weapons system, followed by an equally firm private commitment not to build it. They’re secret submarines, no one will ever know. It’s a win win.

Yeah, I actually don't see the pro either. The only time I come there is because the frontpage linked it and I only find the Wowhead link and move on (why do you even link to your main competitor, it's a bit odd). I'm not sure why WowDB exists, it does nothing that hasn't been done and done better (mostly by wowhead).

Arguing with a troll is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what you do or say, he will just knock over the pieces, take a shit on the board and strut around like he won the whole damn thing.